![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Inheritance Chapter 8
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Amnesia: The Dark Descent and its settings and characters belong to Frictional Games. I’m only borrowing them for a while.
Summary: AU When Alexander Kesler gets a letter, which claims that she is the only descendant of Alexander of Brennenburg, she is compelled to go investigate. She soon wishes that she hadn’t.
8.
A Truth
When the whiteness faded, I found myself in Alexander's rooms, though the perspective seemed a little... off. Like I was looking down from a little taller than I was used to. I was dressing myself, and when I saw the hands that were doing up my waistcoat, they were not mine. A look in a nearby floor mirror confirmed my suspicions; I was seeing things through Alexander's eyes. After the waistcoat was done up, I slipped on the red frock coat that I would later find in a wardrobe, though it was much newer, and all the embroidery was in place.
Now fully dressed, I lifted up a glass from somewhere and looked at the dark pink contents for a moment before I drank it down in a single go. It tasted a lot like blood, though I could taste something else in there that I could identify. I then set the glass down and turned away from the mirror as a baby's cry fell on my ears. I turned and walked into the bedroom to see a cradle over by the fireplace, with an older woman seated in a rocker beside it. As I watched, she reached down to soothe the fussy baby before she looked at me - Alexander - and asked if I really was going to go ahead with it. The woman spoke in German, but like Alexander's little cylinders, I could understand her.
"It must be done." I was started at the sound of Alexander's baritone coming out of what was technically my mouth, but since I was in his body (Maybe, the whole thing seemed too weird to adequately explain.) it was too be expected. Without another word, the woman gently scooped the baby up, wrapped him snugly in his blankets, stood up from her chair, and handed him to me.
"Your son, m'lord." she said quietly, and I nodded at her, before I turned around and strode purposely from the room. I couldn't help but notice that the castle seemed a bit more dilapidated than it was when I had arrived, and it was clear that someone had done some repair work before my arrival. This was borne out by the gaping hole in the ceiling of the entrance hall, but Alexander descended the stairs and walked out of the castle before I could get a good look.
It was full dark out, and there was a carriage and six waiting in the drive, and the footman opened the door for me, though he was careful to keep his eyes averted from the child in my arms. Once inside the carriage the door shut, and it began to move. It was a short ride to Altstadt, and Alexander never allowed his gaze to linger on his son. The carriage shortly came to a stop, and the door opened. I stepped out in front of a modest house with a thatched roof, and I walked up and the door opened before I could reach it.
I stepped inside the dark interior of the house, and I could see two people, a man and a woman by the flickering light of a single candle. The woman curtsied prettily before she eagerly held her arms out. Alexander kissed his son on his forehead, and then with a heavy sigh, he placed the sleeping infant in the woman's arms. He then pulled a small purse that jingled with the weight of the coins inside of it and handed it to her husband.
"Are you ready to leave?" Alexander asked, and the man, Jens Bauer, nodded.
"We are Freiherr." he responded with a nod.
"Good. My carriage will take you to Hamburg. It will travel nonstop. Once there, board the first ship that has available space. Do not stop; do not stay on this land any longer than you must. The sooner you leave, the safer you will be."
"And what of you, m'lord?" Hannah Bauer asked respectfully "What will you do?"
Alexander sighed. "I will return to Brennenburg, and do what I can to stop the madness. Once you are gone from here, do not write me or try to contact me. Leave no hint to where you have gone. Tell my son..." Alexander paused to take a deep, shuddering breath. "Tell him nothing of me. Let him live and die believing that he is no one's child but your own. Now go, you must move quickly." He ushered Jens and Hannah out the door and into the carriage. He spoke to the driver, who then clucked at the team, and the carriage rolled away, towards the only road that led in and out of Altstadt. Alexander watched it until it vanished into the night, and then he turned and began the long, lonely walk back towards the castle.
The white descended again, and when it lifted, I was back in the castle, in a part of it I had never seen before. It was a dimly lit room, two floors high, with a wooden staircase on either side, leading up to an upper level. There were eight cells doors in the room, four on the upper level, and four on the lower. There was a door behind me and another on the other side of the room. I, as Alexander, was standing in the center of the room, listening to the tortured cries of those imprisoned in the cells. The room reeked of suffering and pain, and I felt sick as the full weight of the knowledge of what exactly Walter had been up to pressed down on me. I wanted to scream in rage, but instead I settled for opening the cell doors and trying to help those within. One poor soul, who looked as though he'd been through a few rounds attacked me when I opened his door, and the Star of the Black Eagle, which I had been wearing on the left breast of my blue frock coat when flying. Despite that, he was able to calm the man down enough to force some kind of medicinal drink down his throat, which calmed him down even further.
Footsteps from below made me turn around, and a voice called out.
"Alexander? Are you in here, Freiherr?"
"Walter," Alexander hissed angrily. Fully aware that he could not hope to take on the younger, stronger man in a direct confrontation, Alexander left the poor man's cell and descended the stairs to confront his assistant. I couldn't make out Walter's features since he was backlit from behind, but Alexander knew it was him.
"What have you done, Walter?" he demanded "What is the purpose -" He waved his hand about, gesturing towards the cells around then. "- of all of this?"
"Surely you can figure it out, my lord?" Walter said mockingly "You need vitae, as do I. The difference is, you are choosey about who you collect it from. I am not."
"Why innocents, Walter? There are several murderers and such in the prisons. Why harm those that have done none?"
"I couldn't let you figure it out. Otherwise, you might figure out just who I am. Am I right, Kanael?"
Alexander was startled, though I didn’t know why at the time. Walter then pulled a wicked looking blade from somewhere and began to advance on Alexander.
“And now,” he said “it’s time to be rid of you.”
Alexander backed up a few steps, and then he turned and ran, slamming the door in Walter’s face as he went. I recognized the room he ran into as the room that had the skeleton and the three doors leading out. The door that he had just closed was the one that I hadn’t wanted to enter earlier. Behind him, Walter snarled in anger, slammed the door open, and gave chase. Alexander flew up the steps, fear lending him speed, and then he ran into the short hallway and up the spiral stairs. He closed every door he went through and latched then if they could be, hoping to slow Walter down. In the little room with the four doors and the well, Alexander went through one of the ones that I hadn’t been able to open, and ran into a passage that seemed on the verge of collapsing. As he ran, he pushed hard against one of the support beams, which caused the ceiling to give way. He still did not stop running, though he slowed a little to try and catch his breath. I could feel the burning in his lungs; he was far to old and frail to be running like that. He continued down the hall, and up a flight of steps, down another hall or two, and up another stone spiral staircase the spiraled up through the prison and ended in a series of rooms that were being used for storage. He walked through the rooms and halls before he emerged from a hidden door in the main storage area. (Interesting...) He slowed to a walk, still trying to catch his breath and ease the burning in his chest. He walked out of the back hall, confident that Walter would have to take the longer way up through the sewers, the entrance to cistern, and then through the prison and up the elevator. He had to reach the entrance hall, from there he could take his carriage to Altstadt, and from there, he could go the Prussian capital. Walter had to be stopped, and if it meant throwing himself at the mercy of the king, then so be it.
He hadn’t gone far when he began to notice something strange. Normally the old castle was full of servants scurrying about, but he didn’t see a single one, and it worried him. He became even more worried when he began seeing evidence of struggles, torn curtains, tapestries ripped from their hangers, pictures knocked off the walls. And then he began to see splashes of blood. He heard a guttural hissing behind him, and he slowly turned around.
Behind him was one of the deformed jawless creatures that had stalked me through the castle, and he knew what it was, how it was created, and worst still, who it had once been.
“Gisela,” he choked out, and then the creature charged him. He turned and fled, slamming every door he came across, grateful that the creature that had once been the mother of his son could not open doors normally and instead had to batter them down. It allowed him to get a lead on it, but it wasn’t enough as more of them appeared and joined the chase. He reached the entrance hall and ran out of the front doors, screaming for help, but there was no one around to hear his cries. He had barely reached the drive when something struck him from behind, knocking him face first to the ground. Booted footsteps walked up to him, and he was kicked over onto his back to see Walter standing over him. Once again the bright sunlight made it impossible to make out his face.
“Now why did you do that, Kanael?” Walter asked “It would have been much easier on you if you had just let me kill you. I was going to make it quick, but for the trouble you just caused me, I think you deserve some punishment.” With that he delivered a crushing kick to the side of Alexander’s head, and the white descended once again.
This time when it lifted I was awestruck. I was the center of a massive city, and though it was dark out, the moonlight was more than enough light to see that it couldn’t possibly be any city build by humans. No human architect or engineer had the skill or the knowledge to build what I was seeing. I was standing in a large crowd of people, and I could feel the collective anger rolling off the people there. I say people loosely, because they certainly weren’t human. They were humanish, with two arms, two legs, ten fingers, and I assume ten toes, but their skin was blue, their ears were pointed, and their eyes and hair were stark white. They were dressed in the bare minimum of clothing, and it was easy to see why. Even though it was night outside, it was very hot, and that coupled with the white eyes made me realize that they were likely nocturnal.
The crowd was jeering and calling in the same strange language that Alexander spoke in his cylinders, and I moved through the crowd unnoticed to see what they were jeering at. At the center of the crowd there was a circular dais, on kneeling in the center of the dais, restrained in chains and wearing no clothing at all, was another person that I knew was Alexander, though he looked nothing like how I knew him. He had the same hair, skin, and eyes as those around him, and an air of defeat and misery hung about him.
“Kanael!” cried a female voice, and I looked to the left to see the female version of those people being restrained by several others. Alexander looked up at her, but a person standing next to him struck him hard with the butt of a staff.
“You do not have permission to raise your head!” he snarled angrily, and I was surprised to hear that, even though he was speaking in that odd language, I could understand him fine. Another person standing on Alexander’s other side raised his hands for silence, and his clothes were a little more ornate than the others, signaling that he held some kind of position of power. Once the crowd had gone silent, he began to speak to Alexander.
“Kanael of House Servak, you have been found guilty of the crimes you have been charged with. Hear now your punishment. From this night on, you will cease to exist for us. No more will anyone speak your name or acknowledge that you existed. Your parents will not mention ever having a son, your wife will be as if she never married. The punishment for your crimes is death, but your wife pleaded with me for mercy, so mercy you will be granted. Open the portal!”
The crowd roared in approval as, on three small pedestals around Alexander, electricity began to spark and crackle. It then flowed across the open air to a large basketball sized orb that was sitting on a pedestal directly behind Alexander. It began to glow and flare with bluish white light, and above it, a blue circle formed in the air, and rapidly expanded to about the size of a vanity mirror. I could see a pine forest through it.
“Now wear the shape you shall be in for as long as you live.” said the official looking guy, and Alexander fell to the ground screaming as his body began to shift and change. As I watched in horror, he slowly took on a human form, screaming in agony the entire time. “Go now, the one will no longer speak of, go, and die as a human among them!” Alexander, who was sobbing in pain, began to be drawn up through the portal, and as he passed through, the whiteness descended yet again.
I found myself back in the private study, and I shook my head as I tried to process everything I had just seen and heard. After a few minutes, I had everything sorted, but I was curious about one thing.
“Alexander,” I asked “why were you banished?”
I do not know.
I was shocked. “You don’t know?”
I was dragged out of bed during the middle of the day and thrown into a cell. I never saw or spoke to anyone until I was dragged out into the town center to be banished.
“Why in the hell would someone want to banish you? Or kill you, since that was their original plan right?”
Walter is from the same world, and he had I loved the same woman, but it was me that she fell in love with and married. I assume that he wanted me out of the way. He agreed to banishment instead of death only because she asked.
“So it was Walter that was standing there then.”
Yes.
“And then he was later banished here himself for reasons Daniel wasn’t able to get.”
Yes, once a person has been banished, they are treated as if they never existed, so likely Daniel was not able to get anyone to speak of it.
“Yet, he was speaking of getting your banishment reversed, so maybe it was realized that you had been thrown out of false charges.”
It is possible.
“But you weren’t going to go back, were you? Your wife was going to come here and join you.”
Yes. Alexander sounded so sad then that it broke my heart listening to him.
“Your people must be very long lived.”
We are, but once in human form, I was subject to human aging. That is why I began the vitae extraction.
“Vitae?”
A substance secreted in the blood of mammals during times of great stress. It enhances the reflexes and increases strength and speed. If consumed by my kind in large enough amounts, it slows aging, and can even stop it. I needed to stay alive long enough to see her again. I didn’t care what it took.
“That sounds like adrenaline.” I mused “So what did you do to get it?”
I had to torture the prisoners. As long as they were alive and fearing for their lives, it would saturate their blood. I then could bleed them, purify it, and drink it.
“Tasty.”
Very much so. he commented dryly.
In high school I had taken an ethics class simply to get the credits needed to graduate, and at one point we discussed torture. I was one of the few in the class that believed that torture could be allowable under certain circumstances, such as times of war when the enemy had information that we needed but was refusing to give it up. The rest of the class thought that I, and the few others that agreed with me, were insane and ought to be locked up for life for daring to think such a way. That led to a discussion of what determined who was right and who was wrong during warfare, and the torture issue was never brought up again. Needless to say the idea of Alexander torturing people to extend his life didn’t bother as much as one might think. At least his method, unlike Elizabeth Bathory’s, actually worked.
“They all deserved it?” I asked.
They did. I, and later Daniel, only tortured those who had committed serious offenses, such as murder or rape. The rest served out their sentences in my prison and were released to continue their lives.
“Until Walter came along.”
Yes.
“Do you think your wife still lives?” I asked.
Unless some illness or accident has befallen her, she should. Why?
I stood up from the chair and took up my lamp. “Well, we need to get the portal open and get her over here then. At the very least you can speak to her as you’re speaking to me now, right?”Alexandra... His voice was accompanied by such a feeling of warmth, I couldn’t help but smile.
I pushed the bookcase aside and opened the door. I then descended the stairs and as I did so, I asked Alexander about the monsters in the castle.
They are demons, he explained summoned to this plane by a ritual. The ritual requires a sacrifice and a body for them to inhabit. Once they are summoned into the body, they change and shape it to fit their needs.
“What happens to the soul of the original owner?”
It is forced out, though it cannot go on to the next life until the body is destroyed.
“And here I am, fresh outta claymores. Can they be killed though?”
Yes, but it is very difficult. They are limited by the natural lifespan of the human bodies that they inhabit.
“So they die off of old age and Walter has to summon more?”
Yes.
“That’s just sick.”
That is what he ultimately does to his torture victims once he is done with them.
“Lovely. So where to?” By then I had left the large room at the bottom of the spiral stairs and was back in the one room with the skeleton and the three doors at the one end.
You must go through the door on the right to the room with the cells and then on to the Chancel.
I really didn’t want to do through that room, but I had said that I was going to open the portal (Though I hadn’t the slightest idea how.) so I pulled the door open and stepped into that repulsive room. The room was nearly completely dark, so I lit my lamp and walked slowly towards the center of the room. As soon as I reached the exact center, the room suddenly filled with shouts and screams and doors slamming open and closed as lights flashed in the cells. I dropped to the floor and huddled down and tried my best to cover my ears while I waited for it to stop. If it stopped. I could feel the angry spirits of those that Walter had killed (and maybe a few of those that Daniel and Alexander had killed.) circling around me, screaming in rage, but none attempted to attack me. Somehow I knew that Alexander was holding them back, and after what seemed like an eternity, they fell silent. I looked up to see that the room was dark and still once again, so I stood up and began to walk out, but as I neared the other door, a glint of light from the corner of the room caught my eye. Despite my misgivings I walked over to the corner and picked up a ornately done star, the same Star of the Black Eagle that Alexander had been wearing in the memory that he showed me. It was a beautifully made eight point star with a circle in the center and a black eagle wearing a crown and clutching a wreath of laurels in one claw and a scepter in another. The words Suum Cuique encircled the top half of the circle, with laurels on the bottom half. I remembered that Walther had told me that Alexander had been a member of that order, so I carefully placed the star in my pocket alongside the book that I now knew had been written by Alexander in his native language. I then walked out of the room and into the chancel.
On the other side of the door, I was confronted by two flights up stairs, which I climbed up, and thought there was plenty of light, it was a greenish blue hue, being produced by flames of the same color, which I found more than a little unnerving. I found the warm yellow glow of my lamp much more comforting. By luck I spotted a jar of oil at the top of the stairs, so I cheerfully filled the lamp's reservoir completely before I moved on. At the top of the stairs there was a large set of double doors on the left that led to who knows where and didn't open anyway. Instead I went right, and my jaw fell open in shock.
The chancel was the largest room I had seen in my entire life. Even the vast spaces of the red misty room were dwarfed by the chancel's immense size. The floor and ceiling were so far below and above that they were lost out of sight in the green mist that filled the area. Ahead of me a stone bridge stretched out without any visible support to meet three other bridges in the center of the room. Following Alexander's instructions, I went straight across, bypassing the two bridges that branched off to the left and to the right respectively. The one that went to the right was partially collapsed anyway. On the other side there was a door, which I went through.
I found myself in a small room, filled with lit candles and connected by a narrow bridge to a door on the other end. A pedestal with a bowl shaped impression sat off to the left. Alexander told me that, at one time, the circular panels around the bridge rotated around it and generated a electrical field that made it impossible to cross without using an orb to draw of the power so the machinery could be stopped. Now though, the machinery was silent, and looked as though it hadn't been used in decades if not longer. I moved quickly across the bridge, through the door and down a long flight of stairs. The stairs ended in a circular room with a ceiling so high that I couldn't see it. In the center of the floor, there was a blood pool, long dried and seeped into the stone. I knelt down beside it and reached out to touch it. Before I could react, the white descended again, and I found myself a spectator in the same room.
Alexander, wearing only a torn and bloodied shirt, was lying on the floor in the center of the room, struggling weakly against Walter, who was kneeling beside him. Alexander had obviously been tortured, the burns, lashes, gashes, and puncture wounds that covered his body made that clear, and it was obvious that he was weakening rapidly.
"Tell me how to open the door, Kanael!" Walter roared angrily, as he grabbed Alexander's shirt and shook him violently. The ragged material gave way, and Alexander fell back to the floor with a cry of pain, and Walter kicked him in the side, eliciting another cry. I wanted to scream at Walter, to attack him, anything to stop what he was doing, but I was only a spectator and could only stand by and watch the events play out.
“You will let me in there!” Walter raised the wickedest looking dagger I had ever seen, and he plunged it into Alexander’s stomach. Alexander screamed weakly, and Walter yanked the dagger out and stabbed the helpless old man beneath him again. Walter stabbed him twice more, and Alexander, pulling on some kind of magic or something, raised his hands and made a shoving motion. Walter went flying off of him and slammed into a nearby pillar with the noticeable sound of bone cracking on stone. Walter slumped to the floor, not quite unconscious but definitely dazed, as Alexander managed to stagger to his feet. Once he was standing it was also plain to see that he had been castrated and his manhood had been cut off as well, and the angry, hastily cauterized wounds were still seeping blood.
Alexander, crying in agonizing pain, staggered down a short hallway, and I hastened to follow him. I wanted so bad to gather him to me, and it tortured me to know that there was nothing I could do to help him. He staggered into a room with a stone altar at one end and a strange symbol drawn on the floor on the other. He staggered over to the altar, and touched something on it, and when he turned around, I could see that his hand was bleeding. He then stumbled over to the symbol on the floor and stood in it’s center, though he had to lean against the wall to stay upright. Blood was streaming from the stab wounds and oozing from the others as the room filled with a blood red light, and I heard a rumbling sound.
He then stumbled back down the hallway, across the room where Walter still slumped dazed against the pillar, and down another short hallway and into a room that was identical to the one that he had been in before. Again, he pricked his hand on the altar and stood in the symbol, and this time the red light and rumbling sound was accompanied by the room shaking, and the sound of something heavy opening. He pushed himself away from the wall, but he was unable to stand any longer, and he fell to the floor. He laid there for a second, still, with only his pained breathing to show that he was still alive. I knelt down beside him and inched along with him as he slowly, painfully began to drag himself along the floor. It was what I had seen in my nightmare back home as he dragged himself down the hall, through the circular, and through the large open door opposite the stairs. I whispered encouragement to him as he crawled along, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me. He left a large blood trail in his wake as he dragged himself through a small hall lined with pillars on either side of the main walkway, and he was nearly to the door on the other end when I heard Walter getting to his feet.
“Kanael!” he snarled, and I looked back to see him staggering through the door with blood running heavily down his face and neck and soaking his blond hair. I turned back to Alexander just as he reached the doors to the next area, and he reached out with one trembling hand. The doors opened at his touch, and he dragged himself through. I followed him, and Alexander had just cleared the threshold as Walter reached out to grab him, and the doors slammed shut. I heard Walter’s scream of frustration, and he pounded on the doors, demanding entry, as Alexander crawled a few feet away from them before he couldn’t go on any further, and he collapsed. I sat down beside him, and to my surprise, I was able to touch him. I could feel the warmth of his body as I gently smoothed his hair back from his sweaty forehead.
“It’s safe now, Alexander.” I said gently as he closed his eyes and slipped into unconsciousness “Rest now.” I continued to stroke his hair, and I held one of his hands in my own as he relaxed and died.
I blinked and shook my head again to find myself back in the circular room at the base of the staircase. I knew then, what I had to do. Taking my still lit lamp, I ran down the short hallway to the first altar room. I touched the strange glass shape embedded into the altar and felt something stab me in the palm of my hand. I then went and stood in the symbol that was still visible despite a heavy layer of dust. The light turned red, and I heard the rumbling. I then ran through to the other one and did the same. I heard the door opening, and I ran back down the hall, following the dried blood stain left behind my Alexander’s last desperate attempt to escape, and through the door. I ran down the hall to the double doors, and I touched my bleeding hand to them. They swung open on grating hinges, and there, lying only a few feet away, was Alexander. I ran through the door and knelt down beside him, and was surprised by what I saw.
He was not decomposed. His body was cold and lifeless, and I could plainly see all the marks of the torture that he had suffered when I gently turned him over. Even the ragged remains of his shirt had survived the ravages of time in the same condition it had been when Alexander had died nearly two centuries before.
“How can this be?” I whispered to myself, and I nearly flew out of my skin when my question was answered, and not by Alexander.
“This magic of this room is marvelous, isn’t it?” I looked over my shoulder and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Walther?”
Chapter 7 -- Chapter 9
Back to the Archive
no subject
no subject
While you were cheerfully reading, you should have seen me running around trying to get the links put it. Mozilla Firefox was being an ass, my isp was being an ass, my fucking wi fi card was being an ass and best of all, livejournal was being an ass! It was real fun...
no subject
That sounds like a blast. XDDDD